Wow. Its been a year.

I'm bad.  It has been a year since I posted.  I will try to do better.

In that year, the youngest twins graduated from high school, I have had surgery, one daughter joined the Army and her twin joined the Navy.  One daughter moved from Ireland back to the USA and another left the USA to go to Poland then Germany.

The latest news, is last month, we got hit by a tornado.  As a result, we are getting half a new roof and half a barn.  The tornado came about a third of the way back across our property.  It took the back half of the barn off, and most of the house damage is to the back side.  It also took down a bunch of trees, carried off the little tykes climbers, slides, well house, fence and lawn furniture.  It moved a grill off the back kitchen deck, moved my rain barrel from the back of the house to the front, took the liners out of the feeders and into the pond, got a stock tank, damaged the horse stalls and quite a few things just blew away and still have not been found.

Our neighbors between the blacktop and us all got it worse that we did, one lost 1 entire barn, 2/3 of another and their house.  Others lost parts of their roof and barn.  The next farm down from us lost part of their barn roof, kids toys, lean to and shed and had a horse injured.   Friends of ours a few miles away lost 2 barns, top of a third barn and damage to their house and their fencing was all laid over.

Strange how tornadoes are.  They take the roof off of the barn, but leave the shelving and don't knock over oil cans sitting on the shelf.  They lift the house off the foundation, but leave the floor and the trophies sitting on top of the trophy case and leave the pictures hanging on the one remaining wall.

  be

For the first 4 days following the tornado, our barn was literately being held up by the tractor.  The first remaining undamaged truss was resting on the tractor cab.  We had to call JD's friend out who has a tow company with his big boom wrecker.  They had to rig up a bock and tackle system to lift the barn off the tractor, then pull away the debris so we could drive the tractor out.  I still don't know how we got it out without getting a flat tire (those tires are $1200 each).

The lab refused to sleep outside for a week following the tornado.  He was in the barn we think when it hit.  So, for 7 nights he slept in the house on his rug, and had bad dreams.  He is doing much better now, but won't sleep in the barn.  Instead, he now stays on the front porch.

So, we are now waiting for it to quit raining, so the roof on the house can be repaired and the barn.  In the mean time, we have been cleaning up the yard and moving the fallen trees out of the way.  Hey if your near us and want free firewood, come cut all you want!  Just leave us a portion of what you cut for the opportunity to take what you need.